Orange-and-chocolate tart (Crostata arance e cioccolato)

Traditional recipe

This tart with orange and chocolate is one of the recipes I love a lot. I must admit that it tastes fantastic and every time I do it, I find this cake more and more convincing. It's typically linked to the period of oranges, from December to March-April. The idea came to me after analyzing a Sicilian recipe, very rich in fat and sugar. This is decidedly a version with fewer calories and total fat.

Nutrition facts

Recipe for chocolate-and-orange tart

Preparation and cooking

- Begin with short pastry.
Let butter soften at room temperature and then cut it into pieces.
Beat two eggs.
Sift potato starch, 170g (6 ounces) flour and 100g (3 1/2 oz) sugar over a working surface.
Make a hole in the centre and add liqueur, butter pieces, beaten eggs, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and a pinch of salt.
With your fingers work flour, fat and other ingredients until your mixture forms coarse crumbs.
At this point knead very well and quickly until homogeneous.
Gather your dough into a rough ball and put on to a sheet of cling film.
Let it rest in a cool place, about 30 minutes

- Meanwhile prepare pastry cream.
You should use a little saucepan to be put in a bain-marie finally.
Warm up milk.
Wash an orange and pat it dry with absorbent kitchen paper.
Grate its peel.
Put this peel aside and squeeze half of the orange.
Beat the remaining two eggs together with 140g (5 ounces) sugar.
Beat eggs and sugar for a long time until frothy.
Add 35g (1 1/4 ounce) all-purpose flour, with a strainer, very gently in order to avoid your mixture collapse. Stir with a whisk continuously.
Put your saucepan in a bain-marie.
Begin adding hot milk and orange juice very slowly, stirring continuously with a wooden spoon or a whisk.
Your cream has to thicken but you have to avoid it boils.
So you have to take away from the flame as soon as you see it begins boiling.
At this point add orange peel and vanilla powder.
Let your pastry cream cool, stirring now and then.

- Remaining oranges.
Remove peel from the remaining two oranges.
Cut them crossways into slices.
Put all slices in a little saucepan and cover them with cold water.
Bring to a boil and cook orange slices, a minute.
Remove orange slices from boiling water with a skimming ladle.
Put them on a plate and let them cool.
Then pat dry these orange slices with absorbent kitchen paper.

- Bake your tart.
Preheat oven to 170°C (325°F).
Grease a 26cm (10in) round deep baking pan (with a removable bottom) with a piece of unsalted butter.
Sprinkle it with a tablespoon of flour.
Roll out tart dough (short pastry) on a lightly floured surface.
Line bottom and sides of your pan with your short pastry.
Prick the bottom of your tart with a fork and arrange all orange slices.
Sprinkle them with a pinch of remaining cinnamon powder.
Fill your tart with pastry cream.
Level surface with a knife and sprinkle with remaining cinnamon powder.
Bake until short pastry is golden, about 45 minutes.

Just before serving

- Let your orange tart cool and then make chocolate decoration.
Put half a glass of water into a little saucepan together with a tablespoon of sugar.
Bring to a boil and continue cooking until water is half reduced.
So you have a syrup.
Cut all chocolate into pieces and put them in your syrup together with a teaspoon of butter.
Put your saucepan in a bain-marie and let chocolate melt, stirring continuously.
You will have an homogeneous cream.
Garnish tart surface with this chocolate cream helping yourself with an icing syringe or a spoon.
Look at the photo for more details.

Note

Tips

- This orange tart is a typical recipe from Sicily. I modified the original recipe that is too rich in sugar and butter.

- You can prepare this orange tart in advance. You can preserve it for 2-3 days.

Menu planning

- You can serve this orange tart in a meal, buffet-style or to close a typical Italian menu.
Here's a menu idea. If interested in recipe directions, please, follow the link below, in my next paragraph. Starter: slice piadinas filled with mozzarella and arugula and pair with your preferred aperitif or wine First course: ravioli with radicchio and sausageSecond course: duck with olivesDessert: this tart.
Match the wine I suggest for duck recipe

Useful links for this recipe

- You can read another sweet tart recipe filled with oranges and chocolate cream. It's different and quicker to do but tasty.

- Here are links to suggested recipes. Let's begin with piadina recipe. You can find it in the directory dedicated to Italian antipasto and appetizers.
Ravioli is a kind of fresh egg pasta filled with a lot of ingredients. In this case filling is made with radicchio and sausage.
I have suggested to cook duck together with olives. A simple dish but very tasty.

- Interested in orange details? how to combine this fruit with other ingredients in salty and sweet recipes? their nutritive properties?

Healthy eating

- The story does not change. A slice of this cake is about half lunch or dinner. If you really want to avoid putting on weight, it would be good to eat sweets occasionally or at least thinking about calories, sugars and fat in planning your daily menu.
But the real problem lies elsewhere: the amount of sugar. On this point all we must be careful. Unfortunately sugars are also present in many packaged or pre-cooked food in an unexpected way, salty food included.
To return to the daily balance is always useful to take a look to the labels of what we're buying.
Another useful tip: let's leave these gluttonies for special occasions and choose dry pastry or baked goods for our daily menu.